Who wouldn’t want to visit a place called Nice?
Unfortunately, Nice isn’t that Nice, but Clear Lake is. We popped into the tourist information office (which, of course had a red telephone box outside it, just in case we were feeling homesick), picked up some info about where to stay, but we only came here with one reason in mind – to hire jet skis.
We checked into a beautiful motel overlooking the lake where sea planes seem to be the accepted mode of transport, and headed into town looking for the skis.
I’ve never been on a jet ski before, but oh my god it was fun. 45 mph on flat calm water, carving sharp turns over your pal’s wake in the blazing sunshine – does life get much better?
I’m back in my room now, remembering all of this and I’m amazed at how much we’ve done. And we still haven’t done San Francisco or Los Angeles, in fact it’s still only a week since we arrived. It’s dizzying really.
We had a bit of a crash back to earth tonight though. We went for a few beers in downtown Lakeport (three bars in a hundred yard street) and met a guy called James.
James is a big guy and had just come back from Iraq, and over a game of pool he broke down in tears and confessed he’d killed a family in cold blood and enjoyed it. It’s hard to argue morality with a drunken US veteran who seems hell-bent on self destruction. He gave us his number – Al thinks he’s gay, I think it’s a cry for help. In hindsight I think Al is right.
Weird. But we are getting closer to La La land.
